


Drown while you sleep

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcoholic Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Booker | Sebastien le Livre-centric, Developing Friendships, Drowning, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mentioned Quynh | Noriko, Minor Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nightmares, Pre-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29075688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: The first time Booker dreams of her, he is hanging from the noose in Russia inches above the snow-covered ground, dying over and over again as his neck breaks and heals again and again as he waits for Napoleon's Grand Armée to leave his traitorous not-so corpse behind.That is certainly not the last time.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Everyone
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Drown while you sleep

**Author's Note:**

> This honestly didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it to despite being desperate to write it for, like, weeks, but it was basically inspired by people on Tumblr always making the connection of Nile having the nightmare about Quynh and Booker sitting there like "sure, I've had this dream for 200 years and you've never been concerned about me" and I just? I don't think that Booker would have these nightmares and the team literally not giving a fuck. Like, Booker obviously knew what was happening to Nile so they had to have had a conversation about it at some point?? I don't know. It made a lot more sense in my head than it did out loud haha. Anyway, I'm happy to take any excuse I can to write more Old Guard fic haha. I hope you guys like it x

**October 1812**

Sébastien hung from the noose for the third and final day, his legs dangling as he watched through lidded eyes the _Armée_ pack the rest of their belongings before moving on. His broken neck and severed trachea send him into darkness again, and he dreamt of an axe-wielding woman with a cold gaze and a scowl, two men hand in hand with swords in the other, and a screaming woman deep under the sea, locked away in a cage below the ocean, banging desperately on the metal. 

She died just as Booker woke up, and by then, the _Armée_ had moved on, leaving his hanging body behind. He pushed the dream aside and focused on getting himself down.

**November 1812**

One month after his three-day death and ultimate revival at the end of a noose, Sébastien found himself bunking with the enigmatic trio he had dreamt about who had proved to him, very viscerally, that they were all part of the same breed of sudden-immortals, and he had reluctantly agreed to join them for the night in an abandoned building, the wood rickety and old and weather-beaten, low roofed with gaps between the slats, less of a building and more of a four-walled shelter. Snow covered the ground and they brushed it away to give themselves somewhere to sleep.

“I’m not staying long,” he had told them in broken English. He spoke better than most, but he mostly wrote in English, not speaking in full sentences. The woman named Andromache was a kind translator. “I have to return to my family.”

“To them, you are dead,”  Nicolò  had said. “The news would have reached them by now.”

“They would never believe it,” Sébastien said. “And even if they do, I will convince them otherwise. It will be fine.”

Nobody had commented on it for a long time, and they settled into a tense if calm silence.  Nicolò  fell asleep against Yusuf’s side as, leather-bound book in hand, idly sketched with a light hand a picture that Sébastien couldn’t identify. Andromache sat at the little table, feet kicked up and woollen boots dusting the wood with snow, her bloodied axe at her side and a bottle of something in her hand. Sébastien looked at her a moment too long before he curled up and went to sleep.

His dreams were filled with turmoil, of drawing and waking, his throat scratchy from screaming and his lungs flooded with saltwater. His fists ached as if _he_ were the one slamming his fists on the metal coffin until they bled, until death took him, until he woke up and do it all over again and again and again-

Not for the first time, Sébastien woke with a gasp he couldn’t stop, wheezing and choking and leaning to his side to retch imaginary water from his lungs. He blinked the tears from his eyes, and as his vision began to clear, he slowly became aware of the chilly snow under his hands, the soft firelight flickering on the walls, the quiet snoring from the corner where  Yusuf  and  Nicolò  were sleeping curled up in the comfortable tangle of each other’s bodies that was as familiar as their own, and Andromache seated at the table, watching him with those cold, calculating eyes of hers. 

Neither of them spoke. Andromache just sat there and watched as Sébastien, still gasping and spluttering from the memory of the not-so-dream, reached into his back pocket and fumbled with his flask from where it hung from his belt with trembling fingers. His cold digits could hardly twist the cap, and when it finally clanked against the side of the cold metal flask, he drank deeply from it, shutting his eyes as the brandy warmed him from the inside out and calmed his frayed nerves. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Andromache stood from the table, her feet landing softly on the snowy floor. Her axe scraped lightly against the wood and her steps were almost silent on the snow. She left wordlessly, and the door shut behind her, and Sébastien didn’t have the energy to care.

He drained his flask until there was nothing but the last dregs swishing around on the bottom and the word grew warm and fuzzy, and he rested his head against the wall and tried to forget about the screaming woman on the bottom of the sea, connected to him in a way that he couldn’t comprehend, endlessly stuck in a loop of drowning and being revived, desperate and angry and crazy in ways he could barely understand, forever waiting on the bottom of the ocean for rescue, being dragged along with the current as water continued to fill her lungs.

When he next opened his eyes, his mind still a little foggy and brandy-warm, Yusuf  and  Nicolò  were gone, their swords unseen but their other belonging remaining where they had laid. Andromache had returned, and he smelled the familiar scent of fresh meat cooking over an open fire.

“I went hunting,” she said in flawless French. “Thought you would be hungry.”

“You are too kind,” he replied. “And you would be right. Dying takes a lot out of you.” That got a wry smile out of her, and a short chuckle from him.

Neither of them spoke about last night when he had started awake with a choked gasp and exchanged a knowing look with Andromache watching him silently. He doubted that he wanted to know what that was about, but for now, he had his rabbit and his brandy, and his nightmares of a nameless woman.

**February 1840**

They took refuge in a grand old church, the art that adorned the walls were detailed and beautiful despite being untouched for so long as they moved closer to the outskirts of Italy. They had gotten closer over the past couple of months, and they now felt comfortable enough to laugh and joke and tease each other like family.

Nicky had touched the walls in reverence as he walked in, and Booker and Andy wandered away to begin setting up their belongings while Joe walked up to Nicky and watched him admire the brilliant architecture and familiar surroundings of a Catholic church.

Which is why Nicky was the one who had watched from the confines of the small kitchen in the back of the church as Booker jerked awake, choking and spluttering for the first time in a long time, blinking hard before slowly lowering himself back down and breathing heavily.

Silently, Nicky watched him closely as Booker reached for his flask and took a swig. He slowly walked around the kitchen to join him in the main room, where the others were sleeping spread-out in the grand amphitheatre, the pews pushed to the side, stepping over their stash of weapons to and out-stretched legs to join Booker in the corner. 

“ _Ciao_ , friend,” he greeted as he knelt down beside where Booker was slowly beginning to sit up. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Booker coughed, reaching for a gun. His hands were shaking, and he focused on loading and reloading the cartridge. “Just a nightmare, is all.”

Humming, Nicky got situated against the wall and watched him carefully as Booker concentrated fully on the gun. Deep down, a flare of concern brewed within his chest as he watched Booker eye his flask and clean the gun. Out of them all, he had been the most willing to adapt to the many changes of this century, and had taken to it like a duck to water. Unlike the others, Booker had lived with these weapons for most of his life and had been more comfortable with his pistol than his sabre, which he hadn’t touched since returning to them.

They all knew that Booker was in mourning. Perhaps he should have listened to them when they had tried to persuade him not to stay with them, but who was Nicky to tear a loving father away from his dying children? Who were any of them? So they had watched him leave with the promise he would return when the very last child was cared for, and return he did, but as a new man with a dark cloud of melancholy hanging heavy over him. He would not talk about what had happened, just that his youngest son had passed and his wife had died from heartbreak, and that he was now free to be with them for the rest of his countless days.

Nobody had told him how foolish he was to go back to a life he could never have, but they welcomed him back with open arms, and for once, Booker accepted the embrace. Andy had taken the time to teach him more about fighting than the _Armée_ ever could. Joe had sat Booker down one dawn and asked him to describe his family while he sketched their faces in his book, and Booker had sobbed over the charcoal until the sun was at its zenith. Nicky was cooking, and watching, and waiting for something that might never come. 

“Jean-Pierre?” He asked sympathetically. It was hard not to feel sorry for Booker. It had been so long and the rest of them, Andy especially, that they had almost entirely forgotten what their families were like, but Booker’s loss was just so fresh. It was a shame, Nicky thought, not for the first time, that their gift had chosen such a man who was not ready to give up all that he loved.

But to his surprise, Booker shook his head. “No, not tonight,” he said, unnecessarily focused on the gun in his hands. “I uh, I dreamt of a woman. I’ve been dreaming of her a lot as of late. Every night. I don’t know who she is, or what she’s doing- well. I don’t know anything about her. But I’ve found I don’t enjoy it.”

He glanced up from his task to see that Nicky’s face had stilled, and the colour had leached from his face. “You dream of a woman?”

“I do,” Booker said slowly, watching Nicky’s reaction intently. “Why? Do you know her?”

For a long while, Nicky didn’t answer. Booker waited, slightly impatient, for Nicky to speak. Sunlight began to stream in through the high stained-glass window and dapple their sleeping companions in colourful beams of light. Nicky’s gaze lingered on Joe, his arm reaching out beside him as if for Nicky’s presence, his sword so close to his face that it was a little worrying on Booker’s behalf. Ultimately, Nicky rose, using the wall for stability, as if all the strength had left his legs. “Breakfast is ready. You should eat,” he said, not at all what Booker was hoping for. “I think Andy wants us to reach Calabria by midnight tomorrow.”

With that, Nicky walked away and left Booker alone with his guns and his thoughts and his gin. “Nicky?” Booker demanded as Nicky wandered to Joe’s side. “ _Nicky_? Who is the woman?”

“That,” Nicky said quietly as everyone else began to wake, stirring at the sounds echoing around the chamber and sunlight dancing on their skin. “Is a longer conversation for another day.”

Unhappily, Booker got the hint, and he watched as Andy sat up and stretched and Joe rolled over to grin lazily at Nicky’s softly smiling face. Just like that, the conversation was over, and Booker was once again left alone with his thoughts and the screaming woman drowning over and over.

Andy caught him staring and inclined her head to him. “What’s your problem? Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Booker replied, quickly glancing down. “All good, boss.”

Satisfied, Andy returned to the conversation between Joe and Nicky about distant travel plans and more immediate breakfast, and Booker put his gun down and returned to his flask, and tried, not for the first time, to imagine the gin was saltwater filling his lungs and burning him from the inside out, choking on it and dying and dying and dying.

**September 1910**

It had been a long while since Booker had been woken by the familiar dream, by his side each night like an old friend, but tonight, there had been something… different. Something more vicious, more desperate, angrier. Crazier. More ferocious, like a caged lion, or a wolf with its foot in a beartrap, inches away from its spooked prey.

This time, he shot up with a gasp, nearly hitting his head on the roof. On the bunk below him, Andy snored on, not noticing the jostling of the bed.

By now, Booker knew to slow his breathing, to shut his eyes and to ignore the suffocating feeling of phantom water in his lungs. He crawled off the bed, feet landing softly on the ground by Andy’s head, and made his way into the kitchen.

He was only a little surprised to see Joe there, sketchbook in hand, a shitty cup of coffee in the other. He glanced up through his eyebrows as he approached. “Bad dream?” he asked. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Booker replied sarcastically as he slid into the seat Joe offered to him by kicking it out from under the counter with his foot. “No, I just… I dreamt of a woman.”

Grinning, Joe waggled his bushy eyebrows at him. “Oh? A woman, eh? Just one woman, or one of the _many_ women you meet on your days off?”

But Booker didn’t feel like joining in on Joe’s joke. He was tired, and for a century he had dreamt of a drowning woman he knew by face and scream alone, and he was just so damn sick of it. “No, just one woman. We’ve never met. I don’t even know her name.”

Huffing out a laugh, Joe slid his book aside to make Booker his own cup of coffee, pouring the stale, dirt-tasting liquid from where it sat in the pot, still steaming, and slid it to Booker’s side. “It’s not much, but it’s what we’ve got,” he said as he dragged the flickering candle closer. “Do you want to talk about it? I’ve never seen you wake up like that, especially not over a woman.”

“Eh, it doesn’t matter,” Booker shrugged, wrapping his hand around the coffee cup. “Everyone has nightmares.”

Joe flicked to a new page in his sketchbook, his small smile highlighted by the flickering candlelight. “Describe her for me, and I’ll make sure you never forget her face, so you may find her one day in our travels.”

“I doubt I’d forget her face any time soon. I’ve dreamt of her every night,” Booker leant back in his chair as Joe chuckled playfully and put charcoal to parchment. He waited patiently for Booker to begin, and Booker, being tired and aching from his lasts few deaths and in a rather good mood for once, was willing to indulge him, just this time. “She has… black hair, long, and sharp, stern eyes that might have once been kind, a face that has seen a lifetime in a moment,” he said, picking at his nails. As he spoke, Joe sketched what he imagined the descriptions to match. “Her hair floats weightlessly in the water, as every day she drowns on the bottom of the sea in an iron coffin and screams until her lungs fill with saltwater and she hammers her fists against the lid.”

Joe’s charcoal stilled. Booker glanced up, and he wasn’t even sure if he was breathing. He shut his eyes, and let out a stilted, staggering breath. “You’ve been dreaming about her?”

“Yes,” Booker said. “Every night for a century. You speak as if you know her, Nicky, too. What’s her name? Nobody will tell me.”

“Quynh,” Joe said quietly, picking up his charcoal again with minutely trembling fingers and sketching on his own accord. “She was- _is_ \- one of us. But her and Andy were accused of witchcraft, and when they would not burn, or hang from the noose, they locked Quyhn away in an Iron Maiden and threw her out to sea. We searched for her, but after decades, we lost all hope. The ocean is a big place. Five-hundred years she’s been drowning. Andy has never forgiven herself.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. It was just the flickering hiss of the flame and Joe’s steady hand stroking across the paper. “I think I would have liked to have known her,” he said eventually. “But I’ll admit, I don’t enjoy dreaming of her. Sometimes, I feel like I’m drowning on saltwater, and when I awake, I can’t breathe.”

“We all dream of each other until we meet,” Joe said. “I think, if we had spent any thought on it, we would have realized you would be dreaming about her but… she’s too painful to think about. We miss her, and we all blame ourselves for whatever part we played.”

Booker stared at the flame until his eyes hurt. “Maybe… we could find her. Technology has advanced in five-hundred years. And you have me. Not that it makes much difference, but four is better than three. Maybe you will be reunited.”

“That is a very big ‘ _maybe_ ’, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Joe tore out the page and placed a kiss to the top corner before sliding it over to Booker. “Here, you can have this. I promised you I would ensure you never forgot her face. If you’re going to be awake for a while, I think I might take a walk.”

Joe stood from his chair and made his way around the counter. Booker stared down at the woman on the page below him. Despite Booker’s very basic description, the intricate charcoal sketch looked identical to the women he dreamt of every night, down to the stern yet kind look in her eyes and the slight upward tilt to her lips. This was the woman the others had known, he assumed, and not the one he dreamt of. There was no madness in her eyes, no twist to her expression, no terror and anger on her face. He wanted to know this version much more than his own.

As the front door to their little temporary homestead opened and closed near-silently, Booker pulled his flask from where it always hung from his hip and took a nice, long drag of rose absinthe before he stood, folded the sketch and slid it into his pocket, trying and almost succeeding on forgetting the sensation of drowning for the day. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the dates are alright. Without Google to tell me, I am so bad at doing math, so I had to sort of guess. And also, the first segment is all using their real names instead of their modern/nick-names because I figured that they would have just met, right? There wouldn't be any comfortable familiarity between Booker and the others. I don't know, it made sense when I did it.


End file.
